NASW Foundation National
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NASW Social Work Pioneers®

Richard A. Cloward (1926 - 2005)

Professor Cloward was an internationally known scholar and activist. He
is a most widely read social work scholar in the profession.

He held a Masters degree in social work and a PhD in sociology, both from Columbia
University. He was also awarded an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Adelphi
University. Professor Cloward was a member of the faculty of the Columbia University
School of Social Work since 1954.

In 1982, Cloward co-founded Human SERVE (Service Employees Registration and Voter Education) with his wife, Frances Fox Piven. The organization established motor-voter programs in selected states as precedents for the federal legislation.

In advocating for the passage of the Motor Voter Act in 1992, Cloward told the Times, "The Civil Rights Act of 1965 stopped government from preventing people from registering to vote, and this legislation goes the final step by imposing on government an affirmative obligation to register the eligible electorate."

Cloward was a catalyst in numerous protest movements on behalf of the poor. In 1966, he co-founded­-founded the National Welfare Rights Organization, which aimed to federalize Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) by building local welfare rolls.

In 1988 he published, "Why Americans Don't Vote: And Why Politicians Want it That Way" (Beacon), a work co-authored with Dr. Piven, Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York. The book is a history of efforts to streamline the nation's electoral processes. The authors concluded that political parties would rather discourage voters who oppose their candidates than encourage voters who support them, but they predicted non­voters would eventually return to the voting booth.

Cloward published numerous books, monographs and articles, including "Poor People's Movements: Why they Succeed, How they Fail" (Pantheon, 1977) and "The Breaking of the American Social Compact," both co-authored with Piven (New Press, 1997). Cloward and Piven also co-authored "Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare" (Pantheon, 1971), which was listed among the 40 Most Notable Books by the American Library Association.

Cloward was born on Christmas Day, 1926, in Rochester, NY. He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Rochester in 1949, before earning a master's in social work from the Columbia University School of Social Work in 1950 and a doctorate in sociology from Columbia in 1958.

He was an ensign in the US Navy in 1944-46 and a First Lieutenant in the US Army in 1951-1954. After serving as a group work supervisor in Pittsburgh and a social worker in an army prison in New Cumberland, PA, Cloward became an assistant professor at Columbia's School of Social Work in 1954. He also had visiting posts at the Hebrew University, the University of Amsterdam, the University of California, Santa Barbara and Arizona State University.